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Heading there and back again: See the teaser trailer for the final 'Hobbit' movie

The Hobbit

This photo released by Warner Bros. Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. shows, Ian McKellen, left, as Gandalf The Grey, and Luke Evans as Bard, in the film, "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies." The movie releases in the U.S. on Dec. 17, 2014. (AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures, Mark Pokorny)
(Mark Pokorny)

Bilbo is back...and Gandalf and dwarves and a lot of massive armies. The dragon Smaug might be in there too somewhere.

The first look at "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" was released Monday. The two-minute ad is billed as a teaser, indicating several more trailers will pop up to keep Middle-Earth fans salivating until the December release date.

This will mark the end of not only "The Hobbit" trilogy, but tentatively all of the Middle-Earth movies. The footage promises a lot of colossal battles reminiscent of director Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. To see any actual sword-swinging though, you'll just have to wait for the next trailer.

The first two "Hobbit" movies earned staggering box office receipts. While the reviews were generally positive, they were still more mixed than those for the "Lord of the Rings" movies. Reviewers cited problems in stretching J.R.R. Tolkien's 300-page book into a trilogy of three-hour movies. Many disapproved of the added plotlines and characters that never appeared in the book.

Do you think adding so many elements to the source material should matter in making this a good movie? Let us know in the comments below.